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thirty-one
Dee
“Dennis?”
To say I was stunned to open my front door and find my ex-boyfriend standing on my front porch was an understatement. Since I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, I’d assumed that he and the boys had gone back to Vancouver.
“Dee.” Dennis heaved out a relieved sigh as our eyes met. One glance showed how haggard he looked. His shoulders were slumped. His clothes were wrinkled. His face betrayed his lack of sleep. The man looked downright miserable.
“I thought you were ignoring me,” he explained as I stepped out onto the small porch.
“You know I wouldn’t do that.”
“Yeah, you wouldn’t.” His mouth tipped up at the corner. “I should have remembered you’re nothing like Diane.”
“Is something wrong?” I couldn’t help but ask.
Dennis slumped forward as if carrying the weight of the world. “You could say that.” He shot out a hard breath and nervously combed his fingers through his hair. “Do you think we could talk?” he asked, looking me squarely in the eye. “There’s a lot we need to discuss, but I don’t want to put you in a position where you feel uncomfortable.”
“Why don’t you come inside?” I offered without giving my invitation extra thought. “I’ll put on a pot of coffee, but I’m afraid I don’t have much in the way of groceries. Haven’t had time to go to the store yet.”
“Yeah, sure. Sounds great.” Twenty minutes later, we were seated at my kitchen table, each of us holding steaming, freshly brewed coffees in our hands.
“So, what do you want to talk about?” I asked while the coffee brewed.
“I noticed your suitcase was by the door. Were you going somewhere?” I shook my head. “Were you gone for the weekend?” Dennis sat where he used to sit every time we ate a meal at my table.
“Yeah.” I busied about grabbing cups, sugar, and the creamer.
“With Travis?”
“Yes,” I told him. Not that it was any of his business.
“Exciting getaway?”
“Nothing too crazy. We went to his family’s cabin in the upper part of Michigan. It was so freakin’ beautiful. It reminded me of a cover from those outdoor magazines you love.”
“It sounds like you had a great time.”
“I did, Dennis,” I replied, feeling no guilt about where I’d been or how thankful I was to be a part of a family again. “It was good for me, especially after—”
“Diane left me,” Dennis blurted out.
“What?” I said, not quite sure I’d heard him correctly.
His eyes dropped to his clasped hands. “Diane left me.”
“She left you?” Color me not shocked.
“Yeah. She left me for some Italian businessman she met. She texted me from the airport to tell me that it was over. The bitch confessed she was only after my father’s money, and that she definitely wasn’t cut out to be a mother to my ‘monsters.’” He choked back a sob.. “She called the boys ‘monsters’, Dee. My boys. Monsters!”
“She’s the monster, not them,” I hissed. “They’re wonderful kids. I loved every minute I got to spend with them.”
“They love you too. So fucking much. They miss you terribly.”
“That’s not my fault, Dennis.” I didn’t want to be mean, but I wasn’t about to lie to him either.
“I know, and you’ll never know how sorry I am for doing what I did.” He swallowed hard but still had yet to look at me again. “When we first moved, Nathan kept asking me when we were going home. When I explained that we’d moved permanently, he kept asking when you were going to move there with us. When I told him that we wouldn’t be seeing you anymore, he didn’t talk to me for almost two weeks. It took his brother getting tired of relaying messages to finally get him to talk to me again.”
